Official Vortex Beta Release

In early 2017 we set out to develop an entirely new mod manager. It was our intention to create a mod manager that would be a suitable replacement for our ageing Nexus Mod Manager and combine its simplicity with a more powerful set of tools and features designed to make modding as accessible as possible to all types of modders - newcomers and veterans alike.

We gave this project the name Vortex, and our lead developer Tannin has been working on it along with our new Vortex developer Nagev to ensure that Vortex is powerful, easy to use, and accessible to a wide array of modders. If you’d like, you can get a breakdown of Vortex’s key features on our dedicated page.

After more than two years of development which involved an open alpha that started in January 2018, Vortex is now in a state where it is both stable and “feature complete”. That's not to say that we won't be adding plenty of new features to Vortex in the coming years, but the Vortex of today is one that will be a more than able mod management tool for the vast majority of mod users. We are therefore proud to roll out the Vortex beta to you, our community, in the hopes that Vortex will help you organise and fine tune your load orders and modding installations, as it has helped so many users during the alpha phase.

If you have a perfectly functioning load order and stable modded game then we highly recommend you do not move over to Vortex at this time. The main focus of Vortex is on making your game as easy to mod as possible, in the most stable way, with the least amount of effort and if your game is already stable, there's no point making even a small effort to move over. However, for many of you who have been plagued by mod conflicts and issues, or who are starting a new playthrough or who just want to try out something new, Vortex might be a great fit.

If you need help deciding whether Vortex is right for you, you can find out in our help center.

If you have decided for yourself that you want to give Vortex a try, you can download it here. We’ll also be updating anywhere on our website that points to Nexus Mod Manager.

Vortex beta

We’re releasing Vortex as a beta because there are likely to be more pesky bugs we need to squash, however, it’s currently very stable and we’re confident enough in both its abilities and its state to make it the primary mod manager of Nexus Mods.

The beta is not intended to last forever, we have a clear roadmap of where we want to be before we officially hit the 1.0 full release and we’ll be listening to your feedback along the way. It is our utmost and realistic hope that this beta phase will not last any longer than the alpha stage has lasted.

In preparation for this announcement, we’ve been hard at work writing some helpful documentation to explain Vortex’s various features. We chose to put this on the wiki so anyone in the community can add their own articles and advice for using Vortex, and to help us ensure the content is up to date.

If you make tools for modders or have an idea for a great extension for Vortex you can check out our development documentation here.

Nexus Mods API - Coming soon…

The beta release of Vortex is a major milestone in the future of Nexus Mods. With that in mind we have another project we’re working on in the background to announce, the Nexus Mods API.

To offer deeper integration with our website and services we will be opening our new API to the public in the near future. What this means is, 3rd party applications and websites will be able to access data from Nexus Mods in a more robust and modern way than they do currently.

At the moment, Nexus Mod Manager and Mod Organizer (among others) use our older hook to work with the site, but as we continue to bring our code base up to date these applications will need to be updated to use our new API. We won’t cut off support straight away though, we’ll be working with these developers to allow a fair transition period before the old systems are turned off entirely. Of course, older versions of these programs will no longer be able to download directly from Nexus Mods after this time, but they will still work for manual mod installations.

We’ll be bringing you more information on our API closer to the time, so stay tuned!

i know you dont care what i say because otherwise you would be correct when instead, you are continually wrong. don't you want to better yourself and learn?much love my consistently wrong friend.remember - any issues with vortex, and it looks like you have a few, vortex support - there are a lot of very nice people over there who will go the extra mile to help you.

cant have issues...when its no longer on my systems nor will it ever be and i have you to thank for convincing me to remove it! game dedicated managers from now on for me(since i've never had one claim incompatible with a game it supports)

1ae0bfb8 wrote: that's just it - it DOES work out of the box. You'd know this if you invested time but you didn't.And now you're on to rules - I have a fully modded fallout 4 - over 200 mods a mix of esm, esl and esp. i have 3 custom rules for my mod selection. that's it.Seriously don't make stuff up because you're really on a hiding to nothing here. As i said if you have a problem with vortex open a ticket and get help - you're just sat there saying "x is wrong" when it isn't "okay y is wrong" when it isn't.You can keep arguing, but you're always going to be wrong. Do you just want the last word or something?

Nope pointless arguing with a wall.... enjoy your perfect tool that adds more steps than needed and increases the complexity of an already at times complex process

one last thing you have done a fantastic job of driving me away from ever using vortex truly an outstanding job! give yourself a pat on the back(just don't dislocate a shoulder...not cause i give a damn i just don't want you blaming me )

again with the fallacies. i don't think you can help it, can you?vortex does not add more steps than needed that sentence makes no sense at all and shows yet again that you have no idea what you're talking about. - it adds all the steps required for it to mod your game. there are no unnecessary steps, that would be asinine (look it up).you don't like vortex - fine - i care less - but why would you spread lie after lie after lie about it? what do you gain from that apart from a reputation as a bit of a jerk?i wish you well in your gaming. much love my friend.

1ae0bfb8 wrote: i didn't insult you, you took offence to my sarcastic response to your post of total rubbish.i would help you, genuinely, if you bothered to post this in the vortex support forum, but you don't want help, you already declared you're using another mod manager, so run along, use that, and save the nonsense about it not supporting a game that it obviously does support. all that does is make you look ... how can i say this without you taking offence?... wrong?much love my friend.

if it supported the game i would not have posted ....

i have more games than Bethesda games and surprisingly enough they don't use MO/MO2(Witcher 3 for example)i would like to trust/learn use this manager but if it cant support one of the biggest titles in games with fallout 4(going off personal experience) how can i trust it will actually work for ANY game?

If you read the whole message, you'll see that it says that "Symlink Deployment" is incompatible with FO4, not Vortex. You can change to another deployment method in Vortex's settings; the best one would be "Hardlink Deployment". Be aware that that requires the Mod Staging Folder (also found in Settings) to be on the same drive as the game.

I recommend reading through the in-app documentation before proceeding, as Vortex works a lot differently than other mod managers, especially NMM.

but that's a stupid design choice(managers are meant to make things easier not harder) not that it matters between it failing to work out the box and now the fanboy i've been enjoying speaking with has killed all interest in this "manager" that appears to way more trouble than its worth

its not too difficult.... its damn stupid with a bunch of "design" ideas that should have been scrapped at concept default setting that don't work surely an intelligent search parameter that auto switches between linkages would have made sense? it can already search and find the games so why not switch link types when it finds games that use certain ones?)

then there is this lunacy of custom rules who though that was good idea?....a manager that takes more time to make work and play nice is not an improvement not even over NMM which (never thought i'd have anything nice to say about NMM!)

i'll find workarounds and other managers that work and avoid this leper of a manager(partly due to my experience with it and party from the first responder effectively calling me stupid with that PEBCAK quip....personally i would have used PICNIC at least its a real word and not the sound a three year old makes when they choke on fresh air)

that's just it - it DOES work out of the box. You'd know this if you invested time but you didn't.

And now you're on to rules - I have a fully modded fallout 4 - over 200 mods a mix of esm, esl and esp. i have 3 custom rules for my mod selection. that's it.

Seriously don't make stuff up because you're really on a hiding to nothing here. As i said if you have a problem with vortex open a ticket and get help - you're just sat there saying "x is wrong" when it isn't "okay y is wrong" when it isn't.You can keep arguing, but you're always going to be wrong. Do you just want the last word or something?

Nope pointless arguing with a wall.... enjoy your perfect tool that adds more steps than needed and increases the complexity of an already at times complex process

one last thing you have done a fantastic job of driving me away from ever using vortex truly an outstanding job! give yourself a pat on the back(just don't dislocate a shoulder...not cause i give a damn i just don't want you blaming me )

not a fanboi - there you go again with the name calling - does that make you feel good about yourself? just proof that what i was saying was 100% correct and you didn't invest any time in trying to learn how to use it.my work here is done. remember if you want vortex support - go to the forum - there are some very nice people there who can help you - but ultimately - you need to help yourself first.

if a tool does not work straight out of the box its not much of damn tool is it? i want to actually mod then play the game not spend 5 hours setting up a tool that is supposed to make thing easier....

so your not a fanboy good! i'll retract that one and admit i was wrong there i still think the managers more trouble than its worth after looking into it more....why the hell do i need to write "custom rules" no other mod manager i know of besides vortex demands this insanity and what happens when your mod list hits 250+(with esl files this is easily possible) you spend days modding the game then days writing rules to the point where you loose all interest no thanks after reading that and the issues of not being usable straight out of the box its going to be hard pass from me ...which is odd considering the guy who made this made MO and the early versions of MO2 how the great have fallen

a working copy of vortex? are you saying that there are "copies" of vortex that don't work?

look, if you want help with your issues, open a ticket in vortex support and you'll get help. but i don't think you want to do that, do you? after all you are using another mod manager, yet still coming out with nonsense about vortex for some reason known only to you and the lord above.

also, that analogy about the car doesn't work.

here's a better one.

a user puts zero effort into understanding how a product works. because they don't put the effort in and cannot make the product do what they want it to do - they instantly blame the product - because after all - it cannot be them. the product is obviously broken because they don't need to educate themselves, they simply need to double click and make it do their bidding.

that's the analogy you want right there. its not about cars to the garage. its about investing a little time in self education. no more, no less.

vortex supports fallout 4 - all "copies" of vortex support fallout 4. there are no "copies" out there that don't. there are however, users who cannot make the program work. this is known as PEBCAK. it's a lot more common than you think.

if you're suffering from PEBCAK, head on over to the vortex support forum and get the help you deserve.

i have no faith in it as soon as its installed it throws an error? yeah ill pass on that it just screams avoid at all costs to me(last time i had a piece of software do this it screwed up my system to the point it needed a fresh install windows XP)

i was going to use it for a horizon install of fallout 4 and witcher 3 now i will just find other workarounds but claiming it always works is a false statement its not a bad install i did everything that it needed to work and it failed right out of the box

i've been modding games since 1998/9 with baldurs gate and in those days it was weidu installers(man where those fun) so it not PEBCAK or PICNIC issue i followed the install instructions and it failed it says it incompatible with fallout 4 so be it i have other mod managers i can use ....it would have been nice to have an extra option but that not going to happen now

since it wont work for me i must find other ways of managing mods since vortex is broke(its like NMM all over again EG: works for some and not others) i backed up my claim with a screenshot in case any vortex fanboys want to claim i'm lying(like you appear to be doing...i could be wrong)but since it wont work for(my) fallout 4 i cant trust it to work for any of the games it claims to work for

look at it this way:you take your car a garage and they claim to have fixed the issues it was having and yet before the end of the day the issues have returned would you go back to that mechanic ? no you would not that's how i am looking at vortex its making a claim that it can do all these things and yet when i try and use it it contradicts those claims instantly ergo its broken and broken things get thrown in the trash

enjoy your working copy of vortex i will have to find other avenues of modding the games i have

i didn't insult you, you took offence to my sarcastic response to your post of total rubbish.

i would help you, genuinely, if you bothered to post this in the vortex support forum, but you don't want help, you already declared you're using another mod manager, so run along, use that, and save the nonsense about it not supporting a game that it obviously does support. all that does is make you look ... how can i say this without you taking offence?... wrong?

i have more games than Bethesda games and surprisingly enough they don't use MO/MO2(Witcher 3 for example)i would like to trust/learn use this manager but if it cant support one of the biggest titles in games with fallout 4(going off personal experience) how can i trust it will actually work for ANY game?